Case Studies

Question 1

What’s an aim

Answer 1

A statement of what the study is being carried out to find

Question 2

Qualitative data

Answer 2

Data involving stories or attitudes

Question 3

Quantitative data

Answer 3

Data that involve numbers and statistics such as %

Question 4

What is a case study

Answer 4

A research method studying an individual or a small group and gathering in depth and detailed information using different means

Question 5

What is the aim of Palmer 1977 study

Answer 5

He wanted to find out whether context would affect perception

Question 6

What was Palmer’s procedure

Answer 6

64 students were tested
Is a lab experiment
They were shown visual scenes for two seconds for example a kitchen and a context. The participants were then briefly shown an object to identify objects included a mailbox a loaf and a drum. They were given written instructions to follow
Every participant was tested in each of the four conditions this is a repeated measures design.

Question 7

What are the four conditions of palmers study

Answer 7

• Appropriate, e.g. recognising a loaf after seeing a kitchen scene
• Inappropriate, e.g. similar objects recognising a mailbox which looks like a loaf after seeing a kitchen scene
• inappropriate different objects, e.g. recognising a drum after seeing a kitchen scene
• no context

Question 8

What were the results of Palmer’s study

Answer 8

The participants correctly identified the most objects after seeing an appropriate context and the least after seeing in inappropriate context

Question 9

What was the conclusion of Palmer’s study

Answer 9

Expectations affect perception. People have a perceptual set based on context which affects how accurately they recognise objects

Question 10

Strengths of Palmer’s study

Answer 10

• Palmer controlled how long participants saw the context and the object for, so the differences in accuracy were not caused by having longer to remember some objects
• they had instructions they knew exactly what to do
• Data from two possible participants was not used as they had forgotten there glasses. This is good because poor vision could have affected the results

Question 11

Weaknesses of Palmer’s study

Answer 11

• because the participants were told what they would be doing, this my have cause them to try harder in some conditions. Differences between recall in different visual contexts might then have been because the participants were trying to please the experimenter
• as data from some participants couldn’t be used, this means there were fewer results